Tangled Tides by Karen Amanda Hooper (The Sea Monster Memoirs #1)

Genres: Young Adult, Paranormal, Mythology, Romance
Publication Date: November 25th 2011
POV: Alternating - First-person, Past tense

My Rating: 5 out of 5

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Yara Jones doesn't believe in sea monsters-until she becomes one. When a hurricane hits her island home and she wakes up with fins, Yara finds herself tangled up in an underwater world of mysterious merfolk and secretive selkies. Both sides believe Yara can save them by fulfilling a broken promise and opening the sealed gateway to their realm, but they are battling over how it should be done. The selkies want to take her life. The merfolk want something far more precious.

Treygan, the stormy-eyed merman who turned Yara mer, will stop at nothing and sacrifice everything to protect his people-until he falls for Yara. The tides turn as Yara fights to save herself, hundreds of sea creatures, and the merman who has her heart. She could lose her soul in the process-or she might open the gateway to a love that's deeper than the oceans.

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This was amazing! It was my first mermaid book, but it was so much more! It had mermaids, sirens, selkies, gorgons, water sprites, and even a Greek god. But there was so much to the story, with so much mythology and history, action, and romance! If you love fiery and passionate romances with lots of pledges of undying love and self-sacrifice, this is for you. Even though they were unable to have a physical relationship until near the end, there was never any doubt about their love.

And I was really impressed with the story. I was expecting a simple forbidden romance between a mermaid or merman and a human, and a sacrifice having to be made to be together. But this was so much bigger, their decisions would affect worlds. And neither of them were straightforward merfolk or humans. They had very complicated heritages and very complicated roles in the larger conflict. I never knew what was going to happen next and I was really happy with how things were handled in the end.

I loved the world this book created. I don't know if it was entirely based on mythology, or if it was created by Karen Amanda Hooper. I loved how everything fit together, all the different roles the water creatures played, and the ranking colours of the mermaids sounded so gorgeous. I wish I could have seen them. Treygan, Yara, Karoline, and Nixie all sounded beautiful. They were great characters too. And I loved Pango, he was hilarious. I am a little confused by Rownan though. At first he seemed like a really horrible guy, even after spending time with Yara for months. But then he seemed to change his stance so quickly. Not that I am complaining. I am glad he came around.

With the extremely unique situation Yara and Treygan find themselves in at the end, I am anxious to find out how it works out for them in the future. The few glimpses of their uninterrupted happiness that we got to witness was amazing, and I can't wait to see more, but I know it can't be that easy. I cannot wait to see them fight for each other and their people again in Dangerous Depths, and to see their incredible strength, loyalty and love in action.

“Screw the rules, damn the consequences, and just love. Love until it kills you, because there's nothing better worth dying for.”